After TikTok User Searches for Missing Parents, Oklahoma Cold Case Receives Renewed Attention.
On April 12th, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI) confirmed the identity of Brian Burr, 23, and Rachel Burr, 21, whose remains were discovered 28 years ago in a wooded area near U.S. Highway 69 in Pittsburg County, Oklahoma, on April 9, 1995.
The case, which had gone cold, regained attention after a woman from Ohio turned to TikTok for help in finding her missing parents.
Dallas Burr, the couple’s daughter, who believed her parents were missing for 30 years, posted a plea on TikTok, seeking information from anyone who knew her mother, Rachel Ann Burr, and her father, Brian Eugene Burr. Burr’s TikTok post prompted an outpouring of support and renewed attention to the cold case.
Burr had been searching for her parents most of her adult life, but with only a name and a birthday, the search proved difficult. In the past two years, Burr has been posting videos on TikTok, seeking help from the online community to find her long-lost parents.
In 2021, OSBI sent a specimen from one of the victim’s bodies to CeCe Moore’s Parabon Nano Labs for forensic genetic genealogical testing.
In September 2022, “it was reported the persons were likely to be Brian and Rachel Burr of Texas,” OSBI said in a press release.
At that point, OSBI officials traveled to Texas and Oklahoma to collect DNA samples from Brian and Rachel Burr’s relatives, ultimately leading to their positive identification less than a year later.
“They died when they were hardly in their 20s, so they really didn’t have time to develop into people yet,” she told KTLA. “All I knew was their names and that my mom really liked to play the saxophone.”
In a January TikTok post, Burr said her DNA matched that of her mother and father.
The Oklahoma Office of the Chief Medical Examiner reported their cause of death as gunshot wounds and their manner of death as homicide. Investigators are still working to identify any suspects in their deaths.
Authorities are asking anyone with information about the case to contact OSBI at 800-522-8017 or email tips@osbi.ok.gov.
